THE DOMESTIC CAT. 259 



not indulged with this, however, she will lap water, which 

 doubtless is her proper and more natural beverage, if one may 

 so call it. Miss M. L. Beevor mentions a cat which had been 

 taught to sip water from a wine-glass in the most delicate and 

 lady-like manner imaginable, and was fond of performing the 

 feat. I am surprised to find Mr. Rennie stating that it would 

 be difficult to get a cat to " drink beer, wine, or spirits, all of 

 which it greatly dislikes." This assertion is contradicted both 

 by an old proverb, and by actual facts. In the poem called 

 The Old Courtier, published in The Prince de I Amour (1660), is 

 this line : 



" And beer and ale would make a cat to speak." 



Mr. John Clark, a horse-hair weaver, in London, used to 

 make his cat drunk by giving her bread dipped in ale, of which 

 she was very fond ; and I have several times seen her in a 

 state of such excessive inebriation, as to tumble about the room 

 and roll down the stairs. Shakespeare thus alludes to its 

 drinking wine : 



Stephana. " He shall taste of my bottle : if he have never drunk wine 

 afore.**** Come on your ways ; open your mouth ; here is that will give 

 language to you, cat." (Tempest, Act II. Sc. 2.) 



The female goes with young eight weeks, and generally has 

 three litters in a year, each consisting of from four to five 

 kittens. If annoyed, or ill-fed and unable to procure food, 

 she will, sometimes, eat her kittens, or bite off portions of them. 

 I have been told by a person who kept a great number of 

 cats at Laytonstone, and who used to let them find their own 

 victuals, that one of them bit off the tips of the ears of all her 

 kittens just after they were born. Under favourable circum- 

 stances, however, the cat nourishes her kittens with great care, 

 and displays much affection for them. A lady presented a 

 kitten to a friend, living at the distance of a mile ; and the 

 mother, having discovered her young one, regularly visited it, 

 day after day, for the purpose of suckling it. Hear this, ye 

 illustrious but unnatural bipeds, who confide to a mercenary 

 alien the first duty which a mother owes to her offspring ! 



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